


m 



E43^ SPEECH 

^ — \ OF 



HON. H. C. BURNETT, OF KENTUCKY, 

ON 

THE SUBJECT OF NATIONAL POLITICS. / ijU 



JN TriE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JULY 28, 1856. 



The House being in tlie Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union- 
Mr. BURNETT said : 

Mr. Chairman : Until the past few days I had determined not to occupy the time of the 
House with any remarks from me at this session. But, sir, the fearful issues which certain 
political parties have precipitated upon the country in the present presidential contest warn 
me that this is not the time for a representative of the people to be silent. 

Wc have now, Mr. Chairman, the anomalous aspect of three political parties presenting can- 
didates for the highest office in the gift of the people. One of the parties, the republican party, 
has the entirety of its organization at the North. It is emphatically a sectional party. The 
convention which presented its candidates was sectional, having within its numbers no member 
from the South, unless a few stray abolitionists, who were there from my State and Virginia, 
could be galvanized by its powers, lacking constituencies, into the dignity of delegates. It is, 
then, a sectional party, as are its candidates sectional, banded together to wage an unholy war 
against the integrity of the constitution, and to commit wanton aggressions on the South. 

Such, sir, is the infemy of their purpose. I shall strip the wolves of their sheep's clothing, 
and expose them in all their naked deformity to the penetration of the public gaze. They are 
keeping up agitation by all manner of means, legitimate and illegitimate, to elevate to the 
highest point the inflammable nature of the public mind at the North, that, in the insanity of 
action arising from such a condition, they may elevate their candidates to the high places in 
the temple. They have been clamoring about violations of plighted faith, sacredness of com- 
pacts, compacts consecrated by the sanction of the great statesmen of the country, and all such 
sentimentality as that. Sir, 1 deny that the Missouri Compromise was a comi^act. A compact 
is a mutual agreement between nations or States. The so-called Compromise of 1820 possessed 
no such element of sanctity. 

Let us see what the history of that compromise was. 

In 1819 Missouri applied for admission into the Union, with slavery sanctioned by her con- 
stitution. When a bill admitting hec came before the House, the North placed upon it a con- 
dition abolishing slaverj-. It went to the Senate, and the restriction was stricken out. A 
disagreement ensued between the houses, and the bill was lost. In 1820 Missouri renewed her 
application, and the same condition abolishing slavery was applied in the House. About the 
same time a bill passed the House admitting Maine without a restriction, which went to the 
Senate, and was amended by a committee of that body so as to admit Missouri without any 
restriction. An effort to strike out this amendment of the committee in the Senate failed. At 
that point, Mr. Thomas, a senator from Illinois, introduced the celebrated Missouri restriction, 
which prevailed, and thus amended the bill went to the House. There the majority from the 
North refused to concur in the Senate's amendment, and insisted upon the clause prohibiting 
slavery. A conference committee was appointed, and they reported, as a compromise, that 
Missouri shoiild be admitted without any rlavery restriction, and that the amendment offered 
by Mr. Thomas, of Illinois, should be adopted. Eighty -seven out of one hundred and one 
northern votes were cast in this House against this proposition admitting Missouri, and it 
failed. Finally, however, an act was passed authorizing the people of Missouri to form a State 
constitution precedent to its entrance into the Union, with a qualification prohibiting slavery 
in the territory north of 3G deg. 30 rain. Missouri formed such a constitution; and as soon 
as she applied for admission, the North refused to admit her on the miserable pretext that her 
constitution prohibited the immigration of free negroes within her limits. It was then that 
the measure of 1821, introduced by Mr. Clay, was passed, admitting her upon the provisions 
of the fundamental act last mentioned, providing that no law should be passed by Missouri 
excluding any citizen from the enjoyment of any of the privileges or immunities to which a 
citizen is entitled under the constitution. Thus, Mr. Chairman, was Missouri admitted as a 
State. 



\ 



How, then, sir, can any man stultify common sense by declaring the act of 1820, commonly 
known as the Missouri Compromise, a compact? It was passed against the vote of eighty- 
seven northern men on this floor. The few from that section who voted for it were consigned 
to the unwelcome depths of political graves. It had in its initiation, or consummation pone 
of the elements of a compact. Who were the parties to it? Tjie Korth and South weietljei 
the conflicting contestants. The North did not agree to it as a unit, and without such unity 
the South could not be expected to regard it as a compact. But, gentlemen of ttie North, if 
it was so sacred a compact — so great a pledge of faith, how was it that your section violated 
it the year after its passage ? Your predecessors in this hall voted against it, and, sacred as 
you claim it to have been, would not admit Missouri under it. A supplemental law became 
necessary, which, imposing new conditions upon the admission of Missouri, changed the origi- 
nal fundamental act which contained this Missouri Compromise, and thus virtually vitiated 
any claims it might have had upon the perpetual regard of the South had the admission been 
unconditional under it. 

To show, sir, that the North never regarded this act of 1820 as a compromise, we have only 
to refer to its conduct in 1850, when legislation became necessary for the new territories ac- 
quired by the Mexican war. It refused then to regard this act as a compact, or even to admit 
its being looked upon in the light they now claim for it. Yes, sir, when the country was 
agitated from its circumference to its, centre, and the pulse of the nation beat wilh anxiety — 
when a "Mount Ararat" was looked for eagerly, upon which the ark of the co-snant might 
rest with safety, and the clouds of disunion hung portentously above us — the North refused 
to apply the healing effects of this so much now extolled compromise as a balm to the five 
bleeding wounds which Mr. Clay then so eloquently described the country as suffering from. 
Then it was, sir, that the patriots in Congress, seeing the impending danger, which the North 
refused to avert by carrying out this now sacred compact, inaugurated the principle contained 
in the compromise measures of 1850, to restore peace to a distracted country, and which vir- 
tually abrogated the principle of the Missouri act. The principle of those measures was then 
again initiated as new, but it was not new, sir. It was the corner-stone principle upon which 
the fathers of the republic built our government— the principle of the capacity of man for 
self-government. The principle contained in these measures, vitiating that claimed to have 
beeiTestablished by the act of 1820, was endorsed by the true men of the country everywhere. 
It was endorsed by the whig and democratic parties of the country in their National Conven- 
tions. It was endorsed by their candidates, President Pierce and General Scott. It was en- 
dorsed by the people almo'^st unanimously in every State of the Union, at the election in 1852; 
for every one of the States voted for one or the other of these candidates standing upon this 
principle. 

Mr. 'Chairman, soon after this, a necessity arose for legislation relative to the territory lying 
west of the Missouri, which we had acquired by the Louisiana purchase. It was natural- 
nay, sir, it was the duty of Congress, in the formation of territorial governments for the Terri- 
tories of Kansas and Nebraska, to make the basis of the bill the principle which had thus been 
so universally approved by the nation. Congress enacted them containing the very same 
principles embraced in the compromise measures of 1850, and declaring, in distinct terms, 
what had been virtually done and sanctioned before ; that the Missouri Compromise was 
thereby repealed, thus leaving the question with the people, to be decided by them as in their 
judgment might seem best, when, after reaching maturity, they could properly be considered 
fit for a State organization. Can there be any fairer principle than this— to let the people of 
the North and the South quietly emigrate into the Territory and settle the question of slavery 
for themselves, not by force of arms, but through that silent, but arbitrary instrument, the 
ballot, in the election of their delegates to form a State constitution? And yet, sir, fair as 
was this proposition, just as it was, consonant as it was with the great element of our 
republican government, and responsive as it was to the will of the people, expressed in the 
presidential election of 1852, it was seized upon by designing and wicked men Norfu to arouse 
a factious agitation throughout the North, which is at this time rapidly increasing. Members 
of the very Congress which made this bill a law, in disrespect of public decency, in violation 
of the spirit of our constitution, disregarding what ought to be the duty of every good citizen 
and of law-makers, sworn to support the constitution of the United States, which ought at 
least to have prompted them not to be law-breakers, inaugurated at this very Capitol a society 
for the purpose of defeating the object of the Kansas and Nebraska law, and of_ preventing a 
peaceful contest between the legitimate citizens of Kansas as to what their policy relative to 
slavery should be. 

We have heard, sir, a great deal about the outrages in Kansas, about the invasion of the 
ballot-box, the murder of peaceful citizens, the mobbing of others, the destruction of printing 
presses, the burning of public houses, the sacking of the town of Lawrence, and the other 
scenes of outrage alleged to have been committed there. I knov,' nothing about the facts in 
the case; but 1 say, upon the heads of Nathaniel P. Banks, Daniel Mace, J. Z. Gooprich, and 
the other initiators of the Emigrant Aid Societies, rests all the blood that has been shed, and 
all the j-esponsibility of the outrages which it Is alleged have been committed in Kansas. 
They were the inaugurators of the svstem which resulted in the present condition of things 
in that Territory. What did they do ? They met in Washington, formed an Emigrant Aid 
Society, contributed their money to pour into that Territory a number of free-State men to 



3 

defeat the healthy-exercise, by the bona fide settlers, of the privileges conferred on them by the 
territorial bill, ia order that they might make Kansas free — right or wrong. From this 
inauguration of the system of Emigrant Aid Societies, and its recommendations, resulted all 
the like societies in the North, and the master-spirit of them all, the Emigrant Aid Society of 
Massachusetts. G-ain, they say, was one of the incentives of their moneyed contribution to its 
purposes. That is a shallow subterfuge for their illegal attempts to control affairs in Kansas. 
But if such was really their motives, it but sinks them deeper in infamy — evidencing, as it 
does, that, in conjunction with their illegal purpose of controlling the future destinies of that 
Territory, the love of tilthy lucre added an additional leverage to their movements. 

But, sir, they not only carried out the formation of these societies in the States, but the free- 
State men banded together in the Territory in exclusive organizations for the purpose of 
mating Kansas free. Was it not natural, then, that southern men should combine to resist 
these outside, united wilh inside, attempts to prevent them from enjoying their rights in Kan- 
sas? How dare the instigators of these movements condemn the South for resisting their 
illegal purposes to force a character of institution upon Kansas which would preclude them 
from enjoying their property in it foPii^j^ time to come? From the conduct of those northern 
men who started these Emigrant Aid Societies resulted tha excited state of affairs in Kansas. 
They began it, and they must bear the respishsibility of it — not the South. They not only 
engaged in these illegal attempts to control, by butside organizations, the ballot-box in that 
Territory, but they counselled treason against its regularity-organized government. Tho£e 
who were sent there by the Emigr.nnt Aid Societies carried with them a feeling of opposition 
towards the territorial government which utterly incapacitated them to be law-abiding citizens 
of Kansas. Under the lead of Fieeder, Lane, Robinson, and others, who received their instruc- 
tions to keep up agitation at all hazards, they soon burst out in open treason against the te:^ 
ritorial government, and the authority of the United States; held elections on other than those 
days fixed by the ragulurly-constituted authorities, and fbrmed a State constitution, consult-' 
ing in such formation not the entire people of the Territory, but only their own partisans. 
And yet, sir, we find the republicans from the North, ou this floor — these men who are so 
horror-stricken by what they call outrages, who profess themselves to be eg desirous of 
restoring peace to a distracted country, and of vindicating the purity of the ballot-box in 
Kansas, passing a bill through this House admitting it as a State under the Topeka consti- 
tution — a constitution formed by a band of traitors to the country — a constitution framed 
and passed in utter disregard and contempt of law, and which was but the creature of a, 
minority not having received the sanction of a majorify of the people of that Territory. 

•Mr. Chairman, in the discussion of this bill admitting Kansas under the Topeka constitu-' 
tioD, we were completely deafened with the clamor of the republican members on this floor 
about the wrongs of Kansas, its outrageous laws, and the innumerable offences against rio-ht 
which were committed, as they allege, under the cognizance and connivance of the territorial 
gOTernment. And this clamor, sir, came from men who were endeavoring, at the same time '■ 
to obtain from Congress an endorsement of a purely revolutionary and treasonable movement' 
put on foot, and consummated, as I have already said, in defiance and contempt of all law' 
Their advocacy of this revolutionary movement, imbodied in the admission of Kansas uuder 
the Topeka constitution, they pretended was based upon a desire to correct all these evils 
which they alleged existed there under its present government. And yet, sir, how shallow- 
the hypocrisy of such movements, and how easily is it exposed! 

In the Senate a bill to correct these evils of which they so much complain, originally intro- r 
duced by Senator Toombs, is passed, and sent to this House, repealing all tho'se obnoxious -- 
laws, effecting a State organization— the object professed to be aimed a^by the Topeka bill- 




integrity of the ballot-box in the election of delegates ; in fact, doing every conceivable thing 
to disarm the advocates of the Topeka constitution of all opposition to it by its full provisions 
to correct every abuse of which they complain ; and yet, sir, every republican in the Senate 
voted against it, and not one has moved to call it up in this House, notwithstandino- they 
complain so much, and profess so ardent a desire to see the abases that they allege exist in 
Kansas corrected, and quiet and peace restored to the Territory. 

Sir, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Du.nn] spoke the truth when he said it was not the 
object of the republican party to promote a settlement of afftiirs in Kansas; that none but 
extreme measures, such as they knew would not receive the sanction of the Senate would 
meet their approval. In fact, that they v.-anted to let the question remain onen that they 
might l^ep alive agitation, even though the result be a dismemberment of'the Union if 
necessary to enable them to obtain possession of the government, and convert it to their pur- 
poses. This, sir, is the party that has raised all this hue and crv,, and yet have rejected the 
peace-offering presented by the Senate— a measure which redresses all alleged outrages upon 
Kansas, soothes all her afflictions, prevents further sinning against her, precludes the abrid'-'- 
ment of the rights of the people— pledges, as I have said before, the strong arm of the rai'1- 
tary power of the government, and the fair selection of men from all parties and sections as 
census commissioners to see fair play in that Territory. This, sir, is the uartv publicly exhib- 
iting their purpose not to settle the troubles in Kansas ; and yet, planting themselves upon the 



sole is?ue of making it free, present John C. Frenaont and William L. Dayton to the American 
people for election to the two highest offices in their gift. In assuming this position before 
the country they insidiously disguise the further nefarious purposes of their organization. 
Covertly lurking beneath their carefully-devised platform lie other objects equally, if not 
more, dangerous to the welfare of the South. I have the authority of the distinguished gen- 
tleman fro'm Massachusetts, on this floor, [Mr. Buhlingame,] and the noted senator from the 
same State, [Mr. Wilson,] in the other end of the Capitol, to depict in stronger language than 
I can their other and darker purposes. I read their speeches delivered in Boston a little over 
a year ago. Mr. Bdrlingame said : 

" If asked to state specially what he would do, he would answer : First, repeal the S^ebraaka 
bill : second, repeal the fugitive-slave law ; third, abolish slavery in the District of Columbia ; 
fourth, abolish the inter-State slave trade ; next he would declare that slavery should not spread 
to one inch of the territory of the Union ; he would then put the government actually and perpet- 
ually on the side of freedom— by which he meant that a bright-eyed boy in Massachusetts should 
have as good a chance for promotion in the navy as a boy of one of the first families in Virginia. 
He would have our foreign consuls take side with the noble Kossuth, and against that butcher 
Bedini. He would have judges who believe in a higher lawj and an anti-slavery constitution, an 
anti-slavery Bible, and an anti-slavery God ! Having thus denationalized slavery, he would not 
menace it in the States where it exists, but would say to the States, it is your local institution ; 
bug it to vour bosom until it destrovs you. But he would say, you must let our freedom alone. 
[Applausel] If you but touch the hem of the garment of freedom, we will trample yon to the 
earth. [Loud applause.] This is the only condition of repose, and it must come to this. He 
was encouraged by the recent election in the North, and he defended the ' new movement,' which 
he said was born of Puritan blood, and was against despotism of all kinds. This new party should 
be judged, like others, by its fruits. It had elected a ehampion of freedom to the United States 
Senate for four years, to fill the place of a man who was false to freedom, and not true to slavery. 
For himself, he could say that, so long as life dwelt in his bosom, so long would he fight for 
liberty and against slavery. In conclusion, he expressed the hope that soon the time might come 
when the sun should not rise on a master nor set on a slave." 

After Mr. Burlingame had taken his seat there were loud and continued calls for " Wilson," 
in answer to which Hon. Henry Wilson spoke as follows : 

"Mr. Chairman and Ladies and Gentlemen: This is not the time nor the place for me to utter a 
word. You have listened to the eloquence of my young friend, and here to-night I endorse every 
sentiment he has uttered. In public or in private life, in majorities or in minorities, at home or 
abroad, I intend to live and to die with unrelenting hostility to slavery on my lips. I make no 
compromises anywhere, at home or abroad ; I shall yield nothing of my anti-slavery sentiments 
to advance my own personal interests, to advance party interest, or to meet the demands of any 
State or section of our country. I hope to be able to maintain, on all occasions, these principles, 
to comprehend in my afi'ections the whole country, and the people of the whole country— and 
when 1 sav the whole country, I want evervbody to understand that I include in that term Maa- 
sachuxetts' and the North. This is not the time for me to detain you. You have called on me, 
most unexpectedly, to say a word, and, having done so, I will retire, thanking you for the honor 
of this occasion." ,, , „ t> j 

This, Mr. Chairman, is what the gentlemen from Massachusetts, Messrs. Bcblingame and 
Wilson who are now acting with the republicans, said was the mission of their party. Let 
the people of the South recollect that they thus spoke when they had gained a prominence 
under the auspices of the know-nothing organization, which was then flesh of the same flesh, 
and bone of the same bone, as the know-nothing organization in the South. These were 
their infamous sentiments at that time, in conceiving this republican organization, and they 
afford a key to the concealed movements and purposes of that party now looking to the entire 
subversion of the rights of the South, to make us their menials, and subject our property to the 
dangers of their caprices and pleasure. And, sir, should they succeed in electing John C. 
Fremont President— a man who has nothing in his past life to recommend him to the confi- 
dence of the country ; possessing none of the elements of a statesman, and having no record, 
and, if any, on the side of the South— a man who has turned traitor to the land of his nativity, 
to those who nurtured him in his infancy and childhood, and honored him in his maturity ;— 
I say, sir, if he should be elected, the alternative presents itself to the South ot disgrace or 
disunion. The question will then stare us in the face, whether we will have our constitutional 
rights disregarded in the Union, or maintain them ourselves outside of it? _ 

Sir, I am no alarmist ; nor am I a disunionist. I represent a people here who love the L nion 
—a people who have alw.iys been distinguished for their conservatism, who have always been 
represented in the councils of the nation by men noted for their Union-lovmg patriotism— a 
people that honored Clay, who combined in his person much of the genius of our institutions 
—a people who have ever thrown themselves into the breach to save the Union when the 
conflicts of contending factions threatened to destroy it ; but, sir, if John C. Fremont should 
be elected, pledged as he is to war upon the institutions of the South, composed as his admin- 
istration would be of men from but one section of the Union, filled as the federal offices would 
be by sectional men, all pledged to make common cause against the South, with a Congress 
backing up his administration, such as the present House, who conceive no measure too un- 
constitutional, too revolutionary, too disgraceful, to meet their sanction, so as it makes war 
upon the South, the frightful mien of disunion forces itself on them as far the preferable alter- 
native between it and oppression and disgrace in the Union. They would then, still remindful 



of its past glories, tbe memories of its giant statesmen, the heroic deeds of valor of its noted 
warriors, prefer rather to cut short its existence than to blacken those brilliant recollections 
with the record of its future disgrace. 

Mr. Chairman, with this aspect of affairs presented to the South, and when the hopes of suc- 
<?ess in the republican party are based upon the prospects of its divisions, how can it be divid- 
ed? May I not, sir, say, how dare a third organization present itself to that section for sup- 
port, when these frightful issues are pending upon the result of the presidential election ? Sir, 
I think I can speak for the South, and promise that she knows too well her position not to re- 
buke those who are seeking to divide her, to destroy the democratic party, and with it the 
Union. 

And now, Mr. Chairman, let us examine into this third party, which I have said will be re- 
buked by the people of the South for attempting to divide its vote. It presents a ticket headed 
by Millard Fillmore, with Andrew Jackson Donelson for the vice presidency. It has no earthly 
prospect of success. Its purpose is to wage a guerilla warfare against the great democratic 
party, and, whilst it is protected by the panoply of the constitution, is fighting the battle of the 
country. Disguise it as they may,' Mr. Chairman, their present conduct evidences a heartfelt 
wish rather to see the republicans successful, the constitution prostituted, the Union destroyed, 
than to see the country triumph in the success of democratic principles. When we look at its 
first opening hand in hand with abolitionism, an inference may be drawn, sir, showing that 
the connexion between the first loves is not entirely severed. Can it be possible, sir, that a 
sympathy still exists between them ? When we look at their former union, and their present 
common warfare against the democratic party, the affirmative is not impossible. When we look 
at the fiict that eighty-four republicans in this House were elected as know-nothings; thatthey 
go in for elevating the negro to the dignity and position of the white man ; and, indeed, have 
not yet determined whether the white or the black race is superior ; whilst, like their southern 
brethren, thev go for degrading a portion of their white fellow-ctizens to the level of the negro ; 
— I sav, sir, with these facts staring us in the face, the existence of sympathy between the black 
repubficans and know-nothings of the South would not be surprising— .i sympathy which 
would lead the one to indirect^" aid the other by dividing the South, when, as a unit, it would 
render the triumph of democratic principles certain. 

And now, Mr. Chairman, let us look at the history of this party from its inception, in con- 
nexion with the subject of slavery, down to tbe present time, and see if, from the focts which 
I present, it is at all strange that the so-called national know-nothings and black republicans 
are allies in the present contest against the democratic party. We find it meeting "at the hour 
of midnight, when all the world in slumber sleeps;"' improving upon their first lesson in poli- 
tics, which was to control municipal and county offices in the States, and naming in their 
secret conclaves men to represent congressional districts at the North. Then, sir, moving 
secretly and insidiously to the polls with their tickets fixed, they elected the eighty-four choice 
Americans that want to rule America who voted throughout the balloting for Nath.\niel P. 
Banks for Speaker of this House. Nay, sir, Nathanikl P. Ba.nks himself is a bantling of this 
super-American organization. He was elected by them, sent here and elected Speaker, a ma- 
jority of those voting Ur him being know-nothings. They struck down at the North, with 
but few exceptions, every man in this Hoitse who voted for the Kansas bill. They defeated 
Shields, Dodge, and others, who were candidates for re-election to the Senate, and had voted 
for the Nebraska bill. Yes, sir, their conquering swords cleaved down all these patriots— 
these friends of the South, the constitution, and the Union— and put in their places Wilson, 
Hale, Dl-ukee, Harlan, Fessenden, Bcrlixgame, &c., and re-elected Banks and others of the 
same stripe, all wily abolitionists, watching every opportunity to direct well-aimed blows at 
the interests of the South. These are the Americans they elected to rule America. Besides, 
sir, they ousted every governor of a State who was conservative in his sentiments, and placed 
in their stead impudent abolitionists, who dare to insult our sovereignty with State communi- 
cations, which are nothing more than incendiary documents against slavery. 

These, Mr. Chairman, were the resulti of the triumph of the know-nothing party at the North. 
Emboldened by the encouragement they received from their know-nothing friends in my sec- 
tion, it made a' strike for the first eubernatorial chair elective after its initiation in the South. 
It was the executive chair of the Uld Diminion that was to be filled— that dazzled with its high 
honors the guerilla eye of the dark-lantern party, and invited a trial of their midnight tactics 
to secure the prize. They attempted it, but were met by the just fortune of defeat. Thus, sir, 
did the most poisonous arrow, concocted at the North to destroy the South, lose its force be- 
fore it reached its aim, and tall harmless at our feet. Virginia still stood firm, as she has ever 
done, to beat back the surges of fanaticism as they come from the North to attempt to sweep 
the South. 

Failing, Mr. Chairman, in Virginia, they turned their eyes to other southern States where 
elections were soon to come off". A national council was held— the first regular gathering of 
the "knights with their visors down," from all sections of the country, that was ever held. 
There was the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Ricacd] sitting cheek by jowl with the gentle- 
man from Massachusetts, [Mr. Buffinton.] and Mr. Bartlett of my Stete, presiding over a 
council of a political party in which he hailed as brother, and gave the pass word and grip to, 
Henry Wilson, senator from Massachusetts, of rifle-cane notoriety — all sworn votaries to the 
same false idol. It was necessary to do something for the South, to carry the southern Siatea 



p 

in -n-hich elections were then yet to be held. For two days was the South libelled in that cofr'- 
Tention, and yet the delegates from that section still implored something on paper to show 
their people; and the result of their prayers was the adoption of the famous twelfth section by 
a vote pretending to represent a majority of the American party of the nation, when, in fact, 
it was an emanation from a minority of the electoral vote represented in that convention. 
Upon this twelfth-section subterfuge, Mr. Chairman, they went into the fight in the South. It 
was there represented as the national platform of the American party. At the Xorth it was 
repudiated, and there anti-slavery was the sole issue that the American party made the fight 
on. And yet, sir, every triumph at the North was hailed at the South as a great American vic- 
tory. Their connexion was still kept up. By thus dealing with the people in a double sense, 
they carried my State, elected the governor by an overwhelmingmajority of the legislature, sis 
members of Congress, and a few members of Congress in other southern States. 

Sir, I told the people of my district, upon evei'y stump, that the know-nothings were deceiv- 
ing them ; that the party was not a national party ; and that, as it existed in the South in re- 
ference to the subject of slavery, it had no existence elsewhere, and that on that vital subject 
the party North and South had no feeling in common. Warmly did the know-nothing ora- 
tors repudiate this, what they conceived to be an imputation on their party. How truthfully 
have my representations of it been verified ! They met here together in December ; they could 
not agree in the election of a Speaker. Eighty-four of them voted for Banks, the philosopher 
on the subject of the races ; and a few straggling northerners, with the South Americans, vot- 
ing for Fuller, so-Called national American, but who58 past political history is as strong 
against the South as that of any anti-slavery politician of his day. It is enough for me to say, 
Mr. Chairman, of Mr. Fuller, the Kentucky and other southern know-nothings' candidate for 
Speaker, that during that contest he voted almost continuously for Alexander C. M. Plnxing- 
TON, who, as a member of the last Congress, voted to bring in a bill to repeal the fugitive-slave 
law. I will not detain the House by going into his antecedtats. That vote, sir, is enough for 
me; it is enough to condemn every southern man who voted for him. 

Mr. Chairman, let it be recollected that, on the final vote which was to decide whether 
Nathaniel P. Banks was to be the Speaker, two southern know-nothings threw away their 
votes on Mr. Fuller, and indirectly aided in Mr. Banks's election ; that all of the northern so- 
called national know-nothings who were present thus threw away their votes ; that Mr. Fuller 
himself, also, though in the House, did not vote; and several of the southern Americans did 
not vote for Governor Aiken until it was knownvthat their votes would not elect him, and 
then they gave their votes, and appeared on the record in favor of him. I merely submit these 
fhcts to the consideration of the people, to let them draw their own conclusions as to whether 
many of the know-nothings. North and South, did not alike rather see Banks elected to the 
speakership than a national man like Governor Aiken. 

And now, Mr. Chairman, let us see from the record what the history of the candidate of the 
A.mprican party, Mr. Filkaore, is in relation to the subject of slavery. 

First, I will read his Erie letter, committing him fally to the most odious doctrines of the 
■anti-slavery party of the North : 

Buffalo, October 17, 183S. 

Sir : Your communication of the 13th instant as chairman of the committee appointed by the 
"Anti-Slavery Society of the County of Erie," has just come to hand. You solicit my answer to 
the following interrogatories : 

I. Do you believe that petitions to Congress on the subject of slavery and the slave trade ought 
to be received, read, and respeclfully considered by the representatives of the people ? 

II. Are you opposed to the annexation of Texas to this Union, under any circumstances, so 
long as slaves are held therein ? 

III. Are you in favor of Congress exercising all the constitutional powers it possesses to abolish 
the internal slave trade between the States ? 

IV. Are you in favor of immediate lejrislation for the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Colurabia? 

Answer. I am much engaged, and have no time to enter into an argument or explain at length 
my reasons for my opinions. I shall, therefore, content myself, for the present, by answering all 
j'our interrogatories in the affirmative, and leave for some future occasion a more extended discus- 
aion on the subject. 

MILLARD FILLMORE. 

Let us recollect that this letter was written to a member of the Erie County Abolition So- 
ciety, and that it evidences the most ultra species of pandering to the vilest anti-slavery senti- 
ments. Not a measure could be conceived in the worst abolition mind in antagonism to the 
South but what meets his approval in this letter. lie wishes in it the most incendiary aboli- 
tion petitions to be read, and engage the attention and time of the House. Slavery must be 
abolished in Texas before he would vote for her admission, the internal slave trade between the 
States must be abolished, as must also slavery in the District of Columbia. But, sir, this letter 
is not a series of promises unkept. Every vote he gave in (congress came up to its mark, and 
was cast to weaken the South and to strengthen the abolition sentiment of the country. Here, 

sir, is his congressional record ; 

;.: : On 4be. lUh. of December, .1838, Mf .- Athertpir. askedJeave to ■^fie? lifs, cel^Jsrate^ rps^lutipe^ 
*' '-^S 'K:;:' :;..,:,■; vr..:-:. !:; .iiiuoii CiiL 'iJi gGi::;:';!!';' •-'' ■■ -■••---■•-■.:; •='■■:; :■,■: ■-,:.i--^ 



which llr. Bynum, a leading democrat ia the House from the State of North Carolina said 
"were sufficiently strong to secure every southern interest, while they pariicularly forbore to 
encroach upon the rights of any other portion of the Union." Tliesa resolutions declared that 
Confrress had no power over slavery in the States; that abolition petitions were gotten up for 
the purpose of destroying the institution of slavery in the States: that the agitation of the 
subject of slavery in the District of Columbia and the Territories was against the true spirit ofl 
the constitution ; that the constitution rested upon the broad principle of equality amongst 
the members of the confederacy; that Congress had no right to discriminate between the 
institutions of one portion of the' States and another, with a view of abolishing the one and 
promoting the other; and that all attempts to do any of these things was a violation ot the 
constitution, destructive of the fundamental" principle upon which the Union of these States 
rests, and beyond the jurisdiction of Congress; and that all abolition peUtions be laid upoa 
the table without being debated, printed, or referred. Upon these resolutions several votes 
were talcen in divers shapes, and upon eight votes Mr. Fillmore is found voting adverse to the 
South against the resolutions, and alongside of Jushua R. Giddings, John Quincy Adams, 
Thomas Corwiu, William Slade, and other black abolitionists of lilie character. 

On the 13th of December of the same year Mr. Wi:e, of Virginia, offered a series of reso- 
lutions declaring against the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the abolition 
of the inter-State slave trade, and the reception of abolition petitions, affirming that the la\TS 
of Congress alone govern in the prescription of the mode of recovery of tugitivo^ slaves; 
that Congress has no power to impose the abolition of slavery upon a State as a conuition oi 
its admission into the Union; that the citizens of a slave State have the right to take their 
slaves through a free State; that the general government is constitutionally bound to protect 
them in such right: that the laws of the non-siaveholding States in conflict with such right 
were null and void. The motion to suspend the rules for the introduction ot these resolutions 
was lost ; Mr. Fdlmore voting adverse to the motion to suspend the rules, and against the bcruth, 
along with Adams, Giddings, cj- Co. . • <. xi, i 

On the same day Mr. Slade, abolitionist, from Vermont, moved resolutions against tbe slave 
trade between the District of Columbia and the Sta\:es ; against the same trade between the 
States, and in fevor of receiving, debating, printing, and referring abolition petitions. On the 
motion to suspend the rules for the purpose of introducing these resolutions, which was lost, 
Mr. Fillmore again voted against the South in favor of suspending the rules, along with 
Adams, Giddings, ^ Go. n ■. 

On the 31st of December, 1839, Mr. Coles moved to suspend the rules for the pmcpese 
of movino- a resolution against the reception of abolition petitions ; which motion was lost^ 
Mr. Fillmore again voting against the South— against suspending the rules— along with 
Adams, Giddings, Slade, k Co. , ,. . *•♦• 

On the 13lh 6f January, 1840, Mr. Lincoln, of Massachusetts, presented an abolition petition, 
which Mr. Johnson, of Tennessee, moved to lay on the table; which motion was carriea: Mr. 
Fillmore a«aiu voting with the abolilionisls, against the South, and in the negative. 

On the next day llv. Thompson, of South Carolina, moved a suspension of the rules to i^iTCh 
duce a resoiuticn against the reception and debating of abolition petitions; which was lost; 
Mr. Fillmore again voting acainst the South, in the negative, and with the ahohttomats. 

On the 28th of the same iTionth the noted 21st rule was adopted, which precluded the re- 
ception or entertainment in any way of an abolition petition. On adopting this rule, Mr. Jftll- 
more again voted against the South, in the negative, and with the abohttomsts. 

On the 9th of December, 1840, Mr Adams, of Massachusetts, moved a repeal of this last rule. 
Mr. Jenifer, of Maryland, moved to lay the motion on the table ; which was earned ; Mr. Fill- 
more voting in thenegative, against the South, and with the abolitionists. ' 

On 2l3t of January, 1841, Mr. Adams presented an abolition petition, iir. Connor moved 
to lay a part of it, not embraced within the effect of the 21st rule, on the table. One vote 
was taken in connexion with this subject, on which Mr. FUlmore again voted against the bouttt, 
and with the abolitionists. . . . 

On the Tth of January, 1842, Mr. Giddings presented au abolitiou petition, to the reception 
of which Messrs. Johnson, of Maryland, and Wise, of Virginia, objected under tne 21st rule. 
Mr. Campbell, of South Carolina, moved to lay its reception on the table; which was carried; 
Mr. Fillmore a^-ain voting against the South, in the negative, and vyith the abolitionists. 

On the 21 't^ of the same month Mr. Adams presented an abolition petition, praymg_tn? 
naturalization of free-negro foreigners, and that they be allowed to hold re;U estate. Mr. \\ ise 
moved to lay its reception on the table; which motion was carnea. Mr. I'dlmore again votea 
against the South, in the negative, and with the aWJii07Ui-/5. . 

On the 12th of December. 1842, Mr. Adams called up his motion to rescind the 2l5t rule Mr. 
JoTiDSon, of Maryland, moved to lay it on the table ; which motion' was earned ; Mr. J^Ubrnore 
again voting against the South, in the negative, and with the <zAo^i<i6ftt3i«. . '.^^ '^ 

On the 3d of January, 1843, Mr. Morgan moved a resolution instructing the Committee *Q 
Territories to bring in. a bill repealing a certain act of the territorial legislature of Florida, pre- 
Tfinting the immigration of free negroes into that Territory. Mr. Black moved to lay tlie reso- 
lution on the table ; which was carried ; Mr. Fillmore again voting against the tooutb, in toe 
negative, and with the ff7/o.Ww/i!«^«. ; ' - - ' '' - . , ., i " «._ 

On the 23d of February Mr. Briggs, of Massachusetts, asked for a suspension of the rules to 



8 

introduce a resolution instructing the Committee on the Judiciary to bring in a bill repealing 
the same act of the legislature of Florida. The motion to suspend the rules was lost ; Mr. Fill- 
more again voting against the South, in the affirmative, and with the abolitionists. 

Mr. Chairman, I submit to this House and to the country if this record, which is taken from 
the Congressional Globe of the dates I have mentioned, and which may also be seen in the 
Journal of the House of those dates, does not prove Mr. Fillmore an abolitionist at heart of the 
deepest dye — if it does not fix him indelibly upon the record as having voted to sustain the 
reception, discussion, printing, and action on by Congress, of petitions to effect the following 
purposes ? 

The abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. 

The abolition of the inter-State slave trade. 

The non-admission of slave States. 

The making of slaves free who are in transitu from one slave State to another on sea. 

The making of foreign negroes naturalized citizens. 

The right of foreign negroes to hold real estate. 

And, Mr. Chairman, in addition to these propositions, I hold that, by his vote on the various 
resolutions which 1 have mentioned, he committed himself to the following doctrines: 

That abolition petitions are not a part of a plan of operations to affect and destroy the in- 
stitution of slavery within the States. 

That Congress has the right to do that indirectly which it cannot do directly. 

That the agitation of the subject of slavery in the District of Columbia and the Territories, 
to overthrow that institution in the several States, is not a violation of the true spirit of the 
constitution, is not an infringement of the right of the States affected, and is not a breach of 
the faith upon which they entered the confederacy. 

That Congress has the right to discriminate between the institutions of one portion of the 
States and another, with a view of abolishing the one and promoting the other. 

That the abolition of slavery, the inter-State slave trade and the discrimination between 
the institutions of the several States, would not be violative of the constitution, destructive 
of the fundamental principles upon which the Union rests, and that the consummation of 
such measures is within the power of Congress. 

That Congress can consider petitions on subjects over which it has no power. 

That such petitions should be received, debated, printed, referred, and considered. 

That a citizen of a slave State cannot pass in transitu with his slave property through free 
territory, and that the laws preventing him from so doing are constitutional and of binding 
effect. 

That a Territory eught to be forced by Congress to permit the imposition upon it of the 
immigration of free negroes into its limits. 

That Congress has power to impose upon a State the abolition of slavery within its limits 
as a condition of its admission into the Union. 

But, Mr. Chairman, his congressional record does not complete the chapter of his opposition 
to the South. 

He opposed, sir, in 1844, the annexation of Texas. 

In 1847 he led the whig ticket in New York as the candidate of that party for comptroller, 
and was elected on a platform containing the following as a part of one of its resolutions : 

" * * * they declare, since the crisis has arrived when the question must be met, their 
uncompromising hostility to the extension of slavery into any territory now free, or which may 
hereafter be acquired by any action of the government of our Union." 

And now, Mr. Chairman, I anticipate the answer to all this startling array of facts. I 
will be told, as will this House and the country, that Mr. Filbnore signed the fugitive-slave 
bill, and that that one fact is a sufficient retribution for his previous offences. Sir, there is no 
merit attached to his signature of that bill, when we reflect upon the circumstances which 
surrounded that act. Mr. Fillmore signed the other measures of compromise accompanying 
this act, and delayed signing the fugitive-slave law. He said himself, in his speech at Louis- 
ville, Kentucky, in 1854: 

" The fugitive-slave law had some provisions in it to which I had some objections. / regretted 
the necesnily of its being passed at all." * * * "J examined it in the midst of hurry, confusion, 
and difficulties, and a doubt came up in my mind whether it w*s not unconstitutional, as denying 
the right of habean corpus to the fugitive slave, which doubt I submitted to the Attorney General, 
(Mr. Crittenden,) and upoa being assured by him that the law was not a violation of the consti- 
tution, therefore I gave my sanction to the bill." 

Thus it will be seen, Mr. Chairman, that he hesitated to sign the bill, because he thought, 
like his old compeers in Congress, Giddings, Slade, & Co., that the runaway negro ought to 
have a trial by jury. 

Why, Mr. Chairman, the man who runs second on the ticket to Mr. Fillmore, the "patriotic 
greasy Tennessean," Andrew Jackson Donelson, thus knocked Mr. Fillmore's pretensions to 
credit for signing that bill into the head. 

In the Union, in 1851, when he was editor, he said : 



9 

" As to the assertion that the administration [of Fillmore] is entitled to the credit of standing 
up to the measures of the Compromise in good faith, it in too ridiculout to require a denial, and too 
preposterous to demand refutation. Every free white citizen, who is not an infant, idiot, or lu- 
natic, or woefully forgetful, knows that it is utterly and entirely without foundation. All the 
measures of the Compromise, except the fugitive-slave law, were self-enacting. As to that law, 
Mr. Fillmore was unwilUnij to uermit it to become a late before he consulted Mr. Crittenden on the 
subject— a fact which the Republic [his organ] mentioned at the time, in order to justify Mr. Fill- 
more before his northern higher-law friends for not returning the bill with his objections." 

We know, Mr. Chairman, that Mr. Fillmore came into office pledged to the whig doctrine 
not to veto a bill when it was constitutional, and was passed by a majority of the representa- 
tives of the States and people. The constitutionality of the fugitive-slave law is evident to 
the dullest intellect. Mr. Fillmore, though, was in doubt; his Attorney General removed 
these doubts. After that doubt being removed, the following affords the key to his signature 
of it: 

The New Albany Tribune, the leading Fillmore organ in Indiana, says : 
" Mr. Fillmore gave his official sanction to the fugitive-slave bill because we (the free-soilers) 
could not have got other latcs on which our hearts were set that we have got, had not that law 
been passed also, and because in doing so he was but carrying out one of the great prmciples ot 
the party which elected him— that the personal opinions of the Executive on mere questions ot 
policy ought never to be brought into conflict with the will of the people's representatives 6^ an 
arhitrary exerciie of the veto power." 

Judge Conklin, his minister to Mexico, in a late speech, said : 

" But in imputing to him a willingness to extend and fortify slavery, I am persuaded hisaKmil- 
ants have done him injusiice. I believe, on the contrary, that he still hoUU slavery in the abstract, 
as he is knoivn formerly to have done, in as great abhorrence as they do. The evidence constantly 
cited to justify this charge is the fact of his having affixed his signature to the fugitive-slave bill. 
The alternative was to interpose his veto. But no one had a right to expect him to do this, for he 
had no right himself to do it. Either from doubt about its constitutionality, or from deference to 
the opinion of those who questioned it, he did appoint the usual precaution ot submitting the bill 
to the examination of the Attorney General, and asking his opinion of its constitutionality, lo 
have vetoed it under the very extraordinary circumstances of the case would have be<;n, to say 
the least, a palpable violation of the constitution. No enlightened man who understands the sub- 
ject can doubt this, and no such man can have been sincere in casting censure upon Mr. iillmorc 
for adopting the opposite alternative." 

But, sir, even admitting that he signed the fugitive-slave law in good faith, the first official 
act of clemency on his part, subsequent to signing it, was to pardon two men who were guilty 
of violating the very principle of the bill. In the year 1848 a deep-laid conspiracy was planned, 
and nearly consummated, to carry off from Virginia and the District of Columbia a large 
number of slaves. Two men, Drayton and Sears, the captain and charterer of a schooner 
called the Pearl, were the parties. They had got off from Washington seventy -seven slaves on 
the schooner, and had actually reached the mouth of the river with them, when-they were 
overtaken by a steamboat and brought back. The citizens were so much excited that they 
came near using lynch-law. Drayton and Sears were tried and convicted on seventy-three 
cases for transporting slaves, were'tined heavily, and committed to jail in default of payment. 
Mr. Fillmore pardoned them on the application of Senator Sumner, and thus outraged lav>- 
went unavenged by the pardoning of these negro-thieves. The security of slave property 
•was impaired ° a large amount of tines was lost to the government, and to the owners of the 
slaves, who, under the law, were to have half of the fines. 

And now, Mr. Chairman, having disposed of the idta by bis own testimony ; that of the 
man who runs second on the ticket with him; that of his minister to Mexico ; that of the 
leading organ of Mr. Fillmore in Indiana; and by his pardon of Drayton and Sears, that there 
■was any merit to be attached to Mr. Fillmore's signature to the fugitive-slave law, let us look 
at the construction of so much of his cabinet as were from the North. 

Nathan K. Hall, of New York, Postmaster General, a Wilmot-proviso man. 
Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury, a noted abolitionist. 
Solomon D. Hubbard, of Connecticut, (successor of Hall,) a Wilmot-proviso man. 
Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, a Wilmot-proviso man. _ 

And now, Mr. Chairman, for the benefit ot those men who rail against this administration 
for having by mistake, appointed some men to office who turned out afterwards to be free- 
soilers, let me refer to the letter of the Hon. Samuel A. Smith, which speaks in stronger lan- 
guage than I can, showing that Mr. Fillmore appointed none but free-soilers to office at the 

Washington, June 7, 1854. 
Dear sir ■ I received your letter some time since, and was at the time investigating the subject 
to which you refer. In "Tennessee, as well as North Carolina, one of the principal charges against 
the present democratic administration is " the appointment of free-soilers to office, ana tn = 
ree is made by the preser* '—"-"••*'-'•= "*" Viiimnrp fnr Prpsidpnt. of the united btates. inis 
rge against President Pi« 
to examine carefully the ] 
during bis presidential term. 



10 

Thishasbeena work of no little labor, and has required some time, which accounts for the delay 
.-in ansrreriug your letter. 

Ij Upon this investigation I find the following facts : 

-."•First. Every man appointed to any important office by llr. Fillmore while President, whose 
"residence was north of ilason and Dixon's line, including three members of his cabinet, was afree- 
soiler, and in favor of the Wilmot proviso. 

Second. One of the leading members of his cabinet, the Hon. Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, Secretary 
of the Treasury, was a prominent abolitionist. 

Third. Every one of the appointees before referred to, who had taken any public position on the 
slavery quesfion, was known, at the time of his appointment, to be in favor of the prohibition of 
slavery in the Territories. 

Fourth. Most of those from the same section retained in office by Mr. Fillmore, who had pre- 
viously been appointed by President Taylor, were free-soilers or Wilmot-provisoists. 

Fifth. President Pierce has appointed no man to office since he was inaugurated who, in the 
canvass of 1852, and at the time of his appointment, was not believed by him to stand on the na,- 
tional democratic platform of 1852, which expressly denies to Congress the power to legislate on 
the subject of slavery in the States or Territories. 

Sixth. The diflerence, therefore, in this respect, between the two Presidents, is this : that 
while General Pierce m&j have appointed some free-soilers to oftice without a knowledge of the 
fact that they were such "at the time, Mr. Fillmore's appointees in the northern States were all 
free-soilers, and known to be such at the time of their appointment. 

I have made this examination and comparison with no view to injure Mr. Fillmore, because I 
think the subject of appointments to office and the distribution of executive patronage small mat- 
ters when compared with the great principles now at issue between the various parties of this 
country. I shall do Mr. Fillmore full justice in the coming canvass for his conduct while Presi- 
dent, and shall not deny to him the credit of executing faithfully the laws of the country. I have 
taken the time to make" this investigation to show the ignorance, the inconsistency, or the insin- 
cerity of his supporters in the southern States, whose principal objection to the present admin- 
istration is the unfounded charge of "the appointment of free-soilers to office." 

Excuse the briefness of this letter. 

Yours truly, 

S. A. SMITH. 

Hon. H. M. Shaw. 

-'••Looking, Mr. Chairman, at the antecedents of Mr. Fillnaore, the character of his administra- 
tion, and his appointments to office, it would seem that the last national council of the Amer- 
ican party repealed the platform adopted but one year since, to suit the man whom it prede- 
termined "should be their nominee for President. The party in the South fought the last battle 
on the twelfth section. Whatever advantage they gained in that contest was by the imposi- 
tion they practised upon the people of the South, as I have already shown in my remarks on 
that subject. The convention which passed the twelfth section met in June, 1855 ; that which 
repealed it, in February, 1856. Just think of a party changing its platform of principles in 
.eight months! Well, sir, the abolitionists in the national council, in February, told their 
brethren of the South that they (the South) had not succeeded on the twelfth section; that 
they had tried it and failed, and that they (of tlie North) could not succeed unless the 
twelfth section was stricken out. They insisted on its repeal. Their southern brethren kicked 
a little, but it was repealed. The know-nothings from the South said that the council had no 
right to dictate a platform of principles, notwithstanding the constitution of the party lodged 
that power in the council. That is a matter of no consequence, sir ; for the nominating con- 
vention, which met a few days afterwards, and was composed of nearly all the men who com- 
posed the national council, endorsed its action on the platform, and not only did that, sir, but 
admitted the delegates headed by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Edie,] who voted 
here through thick and thin for Mr. Banks for Speaker — delegates who represented that part 
of the American party of Pennsylvania who had repudiated the twelfth section whilst it was 
a part of the creed. The southern delegates protested ; but finally we see them coming in and 
bending to the dictation of the anti-slavery delegates, swallowing the repeal of the twelfth 
section, subscribing to the new doctrine, and helping- in the nomination of Fillmore and Don- 
elson. 

Mr. Chairman, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was voted for by the entii-e South 
in Congress, with one or two exceptions. The Kentucky delegation in both houses voted for 
it; it was sustained in every election at the South, not a single county could have been carried 
by the know-nothings of my State had they denounced the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; 
and yet, sir, after their election, turning their backs upon their pledges endorsini; that repeal, 
they met in Philadelphia and adopted a platform, the thirteenth section of which declares 
'opposition to the reckless and unwise policy of the administration," * * "as shown in 
reopening sectional agitation by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise." Yes, sir, these men 
who owe their present position here to their unqualified approbation of the repeal of the Mis- 
;POuri Compromise meet in national council and join in denouncing it. On this section, and 
thie repeal of the twelfth section of the platform of 1855, Mr. Fillmore was nominated; and 
the southern men who support him "have registered an edict against themselves." But, sir, 
let us look into this seventh section, adopted in lieu of the twelfth section, and see its rotten- 
Reps. The eveath section says : 

"The recognition of the right of the native-born and naturalized dtizens of the United Statt^, 



11 



permanently residing in any Territory thereof, to frame their constitution and laws,, and to regu- 
late their domestic and social affairs in their own mode, subject only to the provisions of the fed- 
eral constitution, with the right of admission into thr» Union whenever they have the requisite 
population for one representative in Congress : Proviu^d, abeayt, That none but those who are 
citizens of the United States under the constitution and laws thereof, and who have a fixed resi- 
dence in any such Territory, ought to participate in the formation of a constitution, or in the 
enactment of laws, for said Territory or State." 

Can you find anything in that about slavery? Not once does the important word appear. 
Not an iota about the Kansas-Nebraska bill. But once in the whole platform does the Kansas 
act occur to their minds, and that is in the thirteenth section, which I haYe commented upon, 
denouncing the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. ' ' /'/ 

Then, sir, iu the opinion of this American party, the repeal of the Missouri Comi)romise 
vras wrong. If n was wrong to repeal it, it is right to restore it. The South endoi-sed the 
repeal. Mr. Fillmore was opposed to it — the platform of the party upon which he stands 
denounces it. The South, then, and Mr. Fillmore, are antipodes. How, sir, cau the South 
support him? I tell you, Mr. Chairman, that the present is not the time v,'hen the South will 
sanction any double-dealing on this subject. She must have a man square on the Kansas ques- 
tion. She despises the man who would believe the repeal of the Missouri Compromise wrong 
and not sirike for its restoration. Shy believes that the principles of the Ka:isas and Nebraska 
bill will not be fairly tested under an administration headed by a man that was opposed 
to its enactment. To speak out plain, sir, I believe, and am of opinion, that the southern 
people b^■lieve that Millard Fillmore would not do justice to the South in this important con- 
nexion. Can any man on this floor from the South, who is supporting him for the presi- 
dency, give me the exact position of Mr. Fillmore on this subject? Will some southern Know- 
nothing tell me what Mr. Fillmore would do with a bill restoring the Missouri Compromise? 
I pause for a reply. There is no answer. By your failure, know-nothings from the South, to 
answer this question, you have placed yourselves in the position of recommending a man 
for the presidency to your people, of whose opinions on this vital subject you know-nothing. 
You are culpable of the charge of going it blind in an alarming crisis. He would sign a 
bill restoring the Missouri Compromise. He would make Kansas free. He would be true to 
his anti-slavery record, in which, as I have shown, he endorsed the Missouri Compromise, 
by voting against a resolution that Congress had no povrer to impose the a>iolitioa of slavery 
within the limits of a State, as a condition of her admission into the Union. He speaks 
here iu this House thn ugh the mouth of the gentleman from New York, [Mr. H-Wen,] and the 
gentleman from Indiana, [Mr. Ddnx,] the fornier his old law- partner, and his bosom friend, 
personal and political. The southern know-nothings indulged themselves with him as an ora- 
tor at their meeting ia this city the other night. And yet, sir, that is nothing strange when 
we recollect that ray colleague [Mr. II. Marshall] read Mr. Lewis D. Campdell out of the 
American party for not standing on the twelfth section, iu the earlv part of the session ; and 
after that section is repealed we find him speaking from the same stump at Georgetown, 
•in this District, with that notorious black republican whom he had theretofore eicbmmu- 
nieated from the American organization. ' 

The gentleman from Indiana heads the Fillmore electoral ticket in the State of Indiana. 
Both of them were elected as anti-Nebraska men to this House. Neither of them would 
vote for a Nebraska man for Speaker ; indeed, they were so sectional that they would not vote 
for a southern man, notwithstauding their brother know-nothing, m^- colleague from the 
Louisville district, [.Mr. H. Marshall,] was a candidate. One of them voted for Mr. Banks at 
one time during the balloting. 

These men represent Mr. Fillmore truly here. Well, sir, what have they done ? The gen- 
tleman from Indiana has initiated a rerolutionary proceeding in this House to stop the 
wheels of government until the Missouri Compromise is restored. He objected the other day 
to_ the passage of the civil and diplomatic bill until that thing was done. Not a dollar 
will he vote out of the treasury until the Missouri Compromise is restored. The fiscal year 
has expired ; the government is embarrassed for the want of ajjpropriation.a to go on ; the 
Fillmore elector of the State of Indiana says it shall not have a cent, as long as he can defeat 
it by parliamentary tactics, until the South is excluded from Kansas. In the same speech 
in which he announced that revolutionary purpose, he said it was for the purpose of resto- 
ring peace to the country that he wanted the Missouri Compromise reinstated ; and he believed 
the election of Fillmore would be more conducive to the restoration of peace than that of 
Fremont. 

Mr. Haven, Mr. Fillmores law-partner, announced, in reply to a question from the gentle- 
man from Missouri, [Mr. Kekxett,] that he would vote for a proposition fixing a qualifica- 
tion to a resolution to adjourn similar to that offered by the gentleman from Indiana to the 
resolution of the Senate, which provided that before the day of adjournment the Missouri 
Compromise should, in terms or substance, be restored. 

And, Mr. Chairman, let me refer to another fact. The larger portion of the northern, so 
called, national know-nothings voted for Mr. "Dckn's bill, restoring the Missouri Compro- 
inise — amongst them Mr. Fillmore's particular friend, the gentleman from New York, 
j^llr. Havbjt.J If the northern national know-nothings, who voted for it, had voted against it, 
it would have been lost. Thus we find that a proposition to restore the Missouri Cominramise, 



1^ 

introduced by a Fillmore elector, was carried by the northern friends of Mr. Fillmore. What 
think the know-nothings of the South of their northern brethren now ? 

And let me here, Mr. Chairman, introduce an extract from the speech of the gentleman 
from New York, [Mr. Clabke,] a supporter of Mr. Fillmore, and a gentleman who is looked 
npon here as the quintessence of national know-nothingism in the North. This extract 
speaks stronger in its own interpretation than I can. It explains itself, and disarms the know- 
nothings of the South of one of their strongest arguments against the worthy foreign and 
native Catholics of the country : 

" As a Protestant I can do no less, then, than oppose the aggressions of the slave power ; 
and when I find Jesuitism allaying itself with that power, and striving to secure the success 
of its platform and its candidate, I cannot fail to remark that consistency demands from all 
who love the Protestant principle, opposition to the usurpations of slavery, no less than relentless 
hostility to the aggressions of Popery. They are twin demons ; and, God helping me, I am 
resolved, within the limits of constitutional action, to give no quarter to either." 

Does the South want any better evidence than this of the real opinions of Mr. Fillmore on 
this vital question ? His southern supporters admit that they know nothing about it. The 
gentleman from New York, [Mr. Haven,] every one will admit, knows everything about 
the views of Mr. Fillmore. The gentleman from Indiana would not be an elector for him 
unless he knew what would be his policy as to the restoration of the Missouri Compromise. 
These gentlemen, I say, who go for a revolutionary movement to exclude the South from 
Kansas would not support a man of doubtful position on this question. Let the people of 
the South ponder well on the lesson which is read to them in the support of Mr. Fillmore by 
these congressional revolutionists against the rights of the South in Kansas. 

Mr. Chairman, I briefly call the attention of the House to another clause in the platform of 
the late know-nothing council, and I am done. It denounces the granting to unnaturalized 
foreigners of the right of suffrage in Kansas and Nebraska. They stultify their own candi- 
dates, Mr. Chairman, by such a declaration as that ; for on the 2d of March, 1853, Mr. Fill- 
more approved a bill constituting the Territory of Washington, which gave aliens over twen- 
ty-one years of age the right to vote, and to hold office in said Territory. 

Mr. Chairman, so far as the distinguished candidate of the democratic party is concerned, 
there is no need for saying but little about him. During a long course of legislative life, he 
has been foremost amongst those true patriots from the North who have ever opposed the 
inroads of abolitionism upon the constitution, and has stood up in maintenance of the consti- 
tutional rights of the South. On the Tth of January, 1836, Mr. Buchanan presented a memo- 
rial from the Society of Friends in Pennsylvania, praying the abolition of slavery and the 
slave trade in the District of Columbia, and in alluding to the petition said : 

" What would be the eiTects of granting their request ? You would thus erect a citadel 
in the very heart of these States upon a territory which they have ceded to you for a far differ- 
ent purpose, from which abolitionists and incendiaries could securely attack the peace and 
safety of their citizens ; you establish a spot within the slaveholding States, which would be 
a city of refuge for runaway slaves ; you create by law a central point from which trains of 
gunpowder may be securely laid extending into the surrounding States, which may at any 
moment produce a destructive and fearful explosion. By passing such a law you introduce the 
enemy into the very bosom of these two States, and afford them every opportunity of producing 
a servile insurrection. Is there any reasonable man, who can for one moment suppose that 
Virginia and Maryland would have ceded the District of Columbia to the Unite<i States, if they 
had entertained the slightest idea that Congress would have used it for any such purpose ? They 
ceded it for your use, for your convenience, and not for their own destruction. When slavery 
ceases to exist under the laws of Virginia and Maryland, then, and not till then, ought it to 
be abolished in the District of Columbia." 

On the 11th of January, 1836, Mr. Buchanan again urged the same objection to a similar 
memorial ; and asked for a reference by which all such petitions could be disposed of without 
debate, "so as to put the exciting question at rest." 

On the 4th of April, 1836, Mr. Buchanan urged the passage of the bill admitting Arkansas 
into the Union as a State, with a constitution establishing slavery. 

On the 25th of April, 1836, Mr. Buchanan presented an abolition petition against the ad- 
mission of Arkansas into the Union with its pro-slavery constitution, (stating that he himself 
had charge of the bill admitting Arkansas,) and moved to lay the petition on the table. 

On the 2d of March, 1836, Mr. Buchanan made a powerful speech in favor of laying abolition 
petitions on the table without debate. 

On the 6th of February, 1836, he moved to lay seven abolition petitions on the table without 
debate. 

In 1836 Mr. Buchanan supported a bill to prohibit the circulation of abolition papers 
through the mails. 

In the same year he proposed and voted for the admission of Arkansas. 

In January, 1838, Mr. Buchanan advocated and voted for every one of Calhoun's celebrated 
resolutions on the slavery question, defining the rights of the States and the limits of federal 
authority, and affirming it to be the duty of the government to protect and uphold the insti- 
tutions of the South. 



13 

On the 18th of December, 1837, Mr. Buchanan further vindicated the policy of laying aboli- 
tion petitions on the table without discussion. 

On the 13th of February, 1840, Mr. Buchanan made a masterly speech in defence of his 
national position on the slavery question. 

On the 23d of May, 1836, Mr. Buchanan made an able and eloquent defence of Texas in her 
struggle with Mexico. 

On the 8th of June, 1844, Mr. Buchanan made a great speech in favor of the annexation of 
Texas. 

Mr. Buchanan, on Tuesday, the 4th of February, 1845, announced that he was in a minority 
of one on the committee on the Texas-annexation resolutions, but that he should advocate their 
adoption notwithstanding. 

And again, on the 4th of February, he announced that, although in a minority of one in 
the Committee on Foreign Relations, he was anxious that the Texas question should be dis- 
cussed and decided as soon as possible. 

On the 13th of February Mr. Buchanan made a most powerful argument, showing the 
constitutionality and expediency of admitting Texas by joint resolution into the Union of the 
States. 

In 1847 he sustained the Clayton compromise. 

In 1848 Mr. Buchanan united with the South in proposing to the abolitionists to extend the 
Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific. 

Mr. Buchanan, in November, 1850, wrote a letter to the people of Philadelphia, declaring 
that the compromise measures of that year had superseded the Missouri line. 

In 1851 he remonstrated against an enactment of the Pennsylvania legislature for obstruct- 
ing the arrest and return of fugitive slaves. 

He negotiated for the purchase of Cuba while in the cabinet of Mr. Polk. 
In Maj-, 1856, Mr. Buchanan endorsed the resolutions of the Pennsylvania democratic State 
convention, endorsing the principles of the Kansas bill. 

In June, 1856, he was nominated on a platform adopted by the Cincinnati Convention, 
answering all the demands of the South with reference to the Kansas bill and the general 
question of slavery. In his letter of June 16, 1856, accepting the nomination, he places himself 
fairly and squarely on the platform adojtted at Cincinnati. 

Thus, Mr. Chairman, have I presented the record of the only presidential candidates who 
are claiming the suffrages of the South. Can there be a comparison between them, unless one 
odious to that of Mr. Fillmore? He is shown never to have given a vote connected with the 
subject of slavery unless one antagonistic to the interests of the South. On the other hand, 
Mr. Buchanan is shown never to have given a vote, either directly or indirectly, during his 
whole congressional career, but what was friendly to the South, and in character with the 
votes of her most trustworthy statesman. Fillmore voted all the time with Giddings, 
Sladc, & Co., abolitionists ; Buchanan side by side with Calhoun. The record of the one is 
emphatically abolition ; that of the other national. I submit these words to the peojjle of 
the South, and ask them can they countenance the candidacy of a man so unsound as Mr. 
Fillmore, when that candidacy but divides the South, and promotes the chances of Fremont? 
Mr. Chairman, the republicans of the North have no hope of carrying the election of Presi- 
dent, unless, by the aid of their know-nothing friends in dividing the South, they can throw 
the election into the House. And, sir, from what I can learn, the southern know-nothings 
are not altogether unwilling to have the election removed from the people and introduced 
into this arena. Their conduct, sir, in running Mr. Fillmore, evidences this feeling. Is that 
the way they want Americans to rule America? — to defeat the election by the people and 
confide it to this House, where abolitionism reigns supreme — where there is a gentleman who, 
in that event, would cast an equal vote with New New York, and who, representing a 
slaveholding State, felt himself instructed to vote for expelling Mr. Brooks; and where a 
proposition is pending to eject the gentleman from Iowa, [Mr. Hall,] that his colleague, 
[Mr. Thorinoton,] who voted for Mr. Banks, and who was a member of the last national 
council of the kuow-nothings, might cast the vote of that State? And is the ejection of 
Mr. Hall impossible, after that of Allen, of Illinois, who was fairly entitled to his seat ? 
And suppose, in addition thereto, the vacancies in this House from Illinois should be filled, 
so as to give that State to the republicans: where, sir, is there a chance of beating Fremont 
here? Leaving out the possibilities in the Illinois case, in the other contingency I have men- 
tioned, is there not a prospect of electing Fremont in the House? What, sir! the southern 
people aiding in throwing the election into the House that elected Mr. Banks Speaker? 
I cannot believe it. I would rather believe that they will unite to rebuke the attempt to pro- 
duce this result than to aid in its consummation. 

Mr. Chairman, I deem it appropriate upon this occasion to refer to a charge, made in my 
State, connecting Mr. Buchanan with the old charge of bargain and intrigue brought against 
Mr. Clay during his life, arising from his acceptance of the position of Secretary of State 
under the administration of Mr. Adams. I might well ask here, sir, what right have the 
champions of the know-nothing party to take upon themselves the defence of Mr. Clay at this 
juncture? I have no doubt that, if living to-day, he would he like his son, James B. Clay, co- 
operating with the democratic party ; for in the last speech that he ever made to the people 
who had so long honored him, he stated in substance that whenever the whig party was found 



u 

degenerating into a mere faction, he should co-operate with that party -n-hich was national and 
conservative in its character. But, sir, I do net propose to discuss this charge at length :, I 
will only refer gentlemen who feel disposed to malse it to Mr. Clay himself, who, in his letter 
of the l-ith of August, 1827, to Francis Brook, in speaking of this charge, and Mr. Bu- 
chanan's letter m connexion therewith, used this language : "Indeed,! could not desire a 
stronger stut.ement from Xn: Buchanan." ' I also refer to the letter of the Hon. R. P. Letcher, 
who was t>.e bosom friend of Mr. Clay. In writing to him upon the 2'7th of August, IS^T,. 
he says, in reference to the response of Mr. Buchanan to the charge of General Jackson : /, 

" This ansv/er is well put together ; as they say in Connecticut, there is a great deal of goo4' 
reading in Buck's replj-. I am_truly delighted with the manner in which Mr. Buchanan has ac- 
quitted himself." 

I also refer to the biography of "Mr. Clay, by his personal and political friend, and the now , 
leading know-nothing editor in Kentucky, G-eofge D. Prentice, (who is now falsifying himself 
by joining in this charge,) in which he says, in referring to the bargain-and-intrigue impu- 
tation, " that General Andrew Jackson gave up the name of Mr. Buchanan as his witness." He ■ 
adds that "Mr. Buchanan, however, was an honorable man, and hesitated not to say publicly 
that he bad never made to General Jacksim the overtures in question, or any that bore the 
least resemblance to them." Sir, without quoting further, he rests the justification of Mr. 
Clay upon the testimony of Mr. Buchanan. If gentlemen need any further evidence to dis- 
prove Mr. Buchanan's connexion with that charge, I refer them to Mr. James B. Clay, the son , 
of the "Sage of Ashland." who now lives at that consecrated home of his distinguished father, 
the Mecca of the many admirers of that truly groat man. 

Mr. Chairman, it has been charged that Mr. Buchanan advocated the reduction of the 
wages ot the laboring classes to ten cents per day in a speech in the United States Senate. All 
I have to say to that is, that I defy any gentleman to produce any speech which Mr. Buchanan 
ever made during his life- time that ever contained any such sentinaent. It is a mi3era,ble 
slander, sir. He has always been the consistent and eloquent advocate of the dignity of labor, 
and the appreciation of its value. When, sir, the charge was made, he said in the Senate, 
" that such an imputation v.'as a flagitious misrepresentation of my remarks." As to the other 
"pie-bald" slander about his saying that if he had a drop of democratic blood in bis veins he 
would let it out, I have onlj- to remark that no man can prove upon him the speaking of such 
a sentiment. It was a false slander got up to effect his defeat for Congress. It has been dis- 
proved by the respectable citizens of his country, who have grown up with him, and who 
brand with infamy, and charge as a base, unmitigated lie, the v/hole contents of that charge. 

Mr. Chairman, the know-nothing party has been a miserable failure. It appeared upon the 
stage promising great things to the country. Its deluded followers rushed to the embrace of 
the wily politicians who controlled it, as if they were some guardian angels, especially desig- 
nated by Providence to save the country from impending danger. They started, sir, with the 
declaration that the corruption of the old whig and democratic parties had become so great 
that there was a necessity for the new organization, to cleanse the Augean stables of the 
impurities which had by tliose old parties been accuraulated in them. They declared that their 
mission was to destroy the wild hunt after office. We have only to look at the avidity with 
which the adherents of this party endeavored to reach all the offices, high and low, in muni- 
cipal, county, and State elections, to prove how utterly false to that pledge has been their 
constant action. They promised to give to the country officers of higher conservatism and 
purer political morality than any that had ever before filled public positions. We have only 
to look at the members of this party on this floor, the highly conservative ones who voted for 
Mr. Banks, the profligacy with which they have voted away the public lands and the 
public moneys, and the intensity of the sectionalism which they have produced in the coun- 
try, to show a shameful violation of that promise. They promised us purity in elections and 
fuU protection to the right of sufl'rage. This was declared by my colleague [Mr. H. Mar- 
shall] and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Yalk] to be the especial mission of the Amer- 
ican party. Then, sir, how shamefully has its pur{)0se been perverted! Were the riots at St. 
Louis, New Orleans, New Albany, Cincinnati, and last, not least, Louisville, where the ballot- 
boxes were shut out from the reach of citizens, where property was destroyed, where innocent 
men were murdered, an evidence of their desire to purify the ballot-box? They prostituted 
it, sir, but did not purify it. The history of these riots establishes a conclusive anst\-er to 
that promise of the American party, showing, too, that in that respect they stand convicted 
of superlatively disregarding their promises. Congress, they told the people, had the right to 
regulate suffrage, and that, if they were elected to the national legislature, they would pass 
laws prohibiting alien suffrage in the States; and yet, sir, not one of them has been verdant 
enough to make such a proposition here, because they know that the regulation of suffrage i3 
vested in the States exclusively, and not in Congress. They proclaimed against the immigra- 
tion of foreign paupers and convicts. That abuse was to be corrected by them in Congress. 
Equally lacking as in the other case is Congress in power to prevent such immigration. That 
power is also vested in the States; and every State, where there is a possibility of a convict 
or felon getting into the country, has stringent laws preventing their immigration. And 
where paupers come in, the emigrant tax exceeds the amount necessary to support all the poor- 



15 

houses for foreign and native paupers in the eountrj. The proscription of Catholics was not 
to be by positire enactment, but through the ballot-box, and in the dispensation of patronage. 
The first know-nothing oflicial, elected under this Congress, offered the best office in his gift 
to a Catholic; but he would not take it. They were to extend the naturalization laws. My 
colleague from the Louisville district [ilr. Humphrey Marshall] had the floor assigned him 
on the 21st of July, to report a bill from the Committee on the Judiciary to establish a uniform 
system of naturalization. Unanimous consent was accorded to him for that purpose; and 
when he reported it, instead of having it considered at once, by moving to put it on its 
passage, he moved to refer it to the Committee of the ^Yhole on the state of the Union, which 
was done, and where he knows as well as I do it will never be reached. The truth is, Mr. 
Chairman, this cry of abuses clamored throughout the country, to defend the necessity of 
the Atderican organization, was for political effect, and was not to meet any pressing exigen- 
cies that existed. Yes, sir, this American party has performed its true mission, which was 
to do nothing ; and it has done nothing. Office was the incentive that produced its formation. 
It is now but wearing away a brief and unenviable existence. Marked as has been its career 
by the introduction of the worst species of public morals in the country, and the happening 
of some of the most disgraceful events, it will pass away unwept for and unmourned. It baa 
no further claims upon the people, and T."ill be consigned by the South in the next election 
to a grave from which there will be no resurrection. ' 



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